News and Press Releases of DIW Berlin

Register now for the two-day online workshop series "SOEPcampus@Home" - a practically oriented introduction to the data of the Socio-economic panel study (SOEP)

Thu, 11 Aug 2022 10:42:00 +0200

Who are the winners of this year's prizes awarded at the SOEP Conference 2022?

Tue, 26 Jul 2022 11:20:00 +0200

Marcel Fratzscher: „The ECB must be an anchor of stability in the euro area now more than ever“

Thu, 21 Jul 2022 04:16:00 +0200

Marcel Fratzscher, President of the German Institute for Economic Research (DIW Berlin), comments on the results of today’s meeting of the European Central Bank (ECB):

The ECB has made a historic decision and one of its most significant of the past 20 years: The interest rate increase is larger than expected and the ECB has fundamentally changed its communication strategy. Now, the ECB’s most important task is to serve as an anchor of stability in the euro area to prevent an even deeper crisis. With this increase, the ECB has chosen the right middle path between a more restrictive monetary policy and more support for the most vulnerable euro area members. The ECB’s new monetary policy instrument, the Transmission Protection Instrument (TPI), is necessary to counteract the faster rise in interest rates over the coming months.

The TPI, which is meant to ensure a symmetric transmission of monetary policy, is smart but risky, as it is unclear how this instrument will be used. Its conditionality is so low that it is unlikely to be able to provide the ECB with any de facto limits. Going forward, I fear a period of heightened volatility with increasing political pressure on the ECB. I expect ECB critics in Germany will turn to the Federal Constitutional Court immediately. Ultimately, the impending political conflict could seriously damage the ECB’s credibility.

The ECB is facing a very difficult trade-off in pursuit of its price stability mandate. Even a very large interest rate increase would only have a small impact on inflation over the next 18 months. On the one hand, the ECB must raise rates to anchor inflation expectations and protect its credibility. If it fails to do so, it will take the ECB much longer and will be economically more painful to return to price stability. On the other hand, the ECB risks weakening the economy and contributing to a recession if it tightens monetary policy too early and too fast. Moreover, this would imply the risk of the ECB needing longer to reestablish price stability after a crisis.

The economic situation in Germany and the euro area is extremely critical and the risks currently underestimated. I expect inflation will increase to ten percent and the economy will weaken further. Governments must not pass responsibility solely to the ECB to fight this economic crisis. What we need now is an expansionary fiscal policy with targeted support for low-income earners that focuses on strengthening investment to ensure the confidence of economic actors and combat a possible recession.

The new SOEP Annual Report is online!

Fri, 15 Jul 2022 01:30:00 +0200

Which SOEP projects were launched in 2021? What have researchers found out with our data? What additional data do we offer to our users? And what is new since we started working with the fieldwork institute infas?

The report is available online free of charge. We would also be happy to send you a hard copy on request (soepmail@diw.de).

Please download here

The new SOEP Annual Report is online!

Fri, 15 Jul 2022 12:44:00 +0200

Research Assistant (m/f/d) in Empirical Industrial Economics

Mon, 11 Jul 2022 02:59:00 +0200

Starting on October 2022 for the length of one year, the Firms and Markets Department is looking for a Research Assistant (m/f/d) in Empirical Industrial Economics, part-time (19.5 hours/week).

This position is not suitable for scientific qualification according to § 2 (1) WissZeitVG.

Postdoc (f/m/div)

Fri, 08 Jul 2022 11:56:00 +0200

The Gender Economics Research Group in the Public Economics Department is looking for a

Postdoc (f/m/div)

Research Interns (m/f/div)

Wed, 06 Jul 2022 11:49:00 +0200

The department of “Macroeconomics” at DIW Berlin is looking for an Research Interns (m/f/div), full-time for the project “Trade and the wealth of nations: A micro view since 1870” a joint project with Adrien Matray (Princeton University) and Chenzi Xu (Stanford University) starting at the earliest possible date. The research intern will actively participate in an ambitious empirical research project that studies the composition of bilateral trade flows over the last 150 years. We have a particular focus on understanding which products of trade were detrimental versus beneficial for countries economic development over the last 150 years and the impact of geo-economic conflicts on critical resources.

Why natural gas is not a bridge technology

Mon, 04 Jul 2022 08:38:00 +0200

Electricity supply in Germany can be secured without Russian supplies and nuclear energy; the 2030 coal-phase out remains possible

Fri, 01 Jul 2022 04:14:00 +0200

Abstract:

The European Union has increased pressure on Russia by enacting a coal embargo. Following a transition period, Russian coal imports will end in August 2022. Recent studies show that Germany will be able to substitute Russian supplies with imports from other countries by summer 2022. However, with the looming threat of a Russian gas supply stop, plans must be developed to ensure security of supply. In scenario calculations, DIW Berlin analyzed how the German electricity system can respond to a stop of Russian energy supplies (especially coal and natural gas) while still maintaining the accelerated coal phase-out and the 2022 nuclear phase-out plans. The calculations show that a secure electricity supply will be possible in 2023, even without Russian energy supplies. The shutdown of the final three nuclear power plants can and should take place as planned in December 2022. In the short term, coal-fired power plants from the grid reserves will have to be used and the standby mode of some power plants will have to be extended. In the medium term, the accelerated expansion of renewable energy infrastructure as envisaged by the German government in the set of measures known as the Easter Package is expected to lead to a decline in demand for natural gas and coal-fired power generation by 2030. Thus, an accelerated coal phase-out by 2030 as laid out in the coalition agreement is still possible.

Jana Hamdan has successfully defended her dissertation

Mon, 25 Apr 2022 09:37:00 +0200

Energy supply security in Germany can be guaranteed even without natural gas from Russia

Wed, 13 Apr 2022 02:00:00 +0200

Abstract:

The Russian war on Ukraine and Germany’s dependence on Russian gas require a rethink of German energy supplies. While there is a heated debate about an immediate energy embargo, Russia could also stop its supplies at any time. To date, Germany has purchased around 55 percent of its natural gas from Russia. DIW Berlin has developed scenarios for how the German energy system could become independent of these imports as quickly as possible in the European context: On the supply side, deliveries from other natural gas exporting countries could compensate for some of the Russian exports. Security of supply would be significantly strengthened if the pipeline and storage infrastructure were used more efficiently. On the demand side, there is a short-term savings potential of 19 to 26 percent of current natural gas demand. In the medium term, a push towards renewable heat supply and higher energy efficiency is particularly necessary. If the energy-saving potential is exploited to the maximum and supplies from other natural gas supplier countries are expanded as far as technically possible at the same time, Germany’s supply of natural gas will be secure in 2022 and in the coming winter 2022/2023, even without Russian imports.

Joint Economic Forecast: From Pandemic to Energy Crisis: Economy and Politics under Permanent Stress

Wed, 13 Apr 2022 10:00:00 +0200

SOEP-Core data 1984-2020 (v37) available

Fri, 08 Apr 2022 05:21:00 +0200

German leading research institutions bring Europe's largest social science panel study to Berlin

Tue, 29 Mar 2022 10:01:00 +0200

Report „Decarbonisation of energy“ for the European Parliament

Mon, 28 Mar 2022 11:13:00 +0200

Update of the Stata practice dataset for use in the college classroom

Tue, 15 Mar 2022 11:13:00 +0200

The practice dataset can be downloaded from our website and used without signing a data distribution contract. The data are provided under a CC-BY-SA license.

The updated dataset uses original variables from SOEP-Core version 36 in longitudinal format. It contains a total of 15 variables covering the last four survey years, 2015-2019. In addition, the range of variables contained in the practice dataset has also been slightly restructured and expanded to enable better simulation of income and labor market analyses.

We now also provide the do-file used to create the dataset, which can be downloaded along with the data.

The practice dataset is available in German and English.

More information at SOEP in the College Classroom.

SOEP User Conference 2022 - Call for Papers (deadline extended)

Thu, 03 Feb 2022 02:40:00 +0200

The call for papers on our SOEP2022 - 14th International German Socio-Economic Panel User Conference is online.

Conference date: June 30-July 1, 2022, in Berlin!

Please submit electronic versions of abstracts (up to 300 words) no later than FEB 9, 2022 to: soep2022@diw.de

Researchers of all disciplines are invited to submit an abstract.
The theme of the conference and keynote speeches will be "The Opportunities and Challenges of Technological Change and Digitalization".

More information on our conference website.

Call for Papers SOEP2022

News from the SOEP - Concise in the current SOEPnewsletter

Tue, 01 Feb 2022 03:58:00 +0200

The SOEPnewsletter January 2022 in it's html version.

Enjoy reading

COP26 statement on coal exit

Mon, 29 Nov 2021 12:42:00 +0200